Championships... oh yeah, and giving the Spurs a playoff ass-whipping so bad they still can't sit down without feeling it. Great job by the Spurs, but kind of a weird record - given the peculiar situation that led to their extended roadtrip. It's kind of like holding the record for most wins by an NBA team from San Antonio... Could be. I think durability issues might also make a GM responsible for building a team go for Duncan or KG rather than Kobe, who plays a high-risk style, and whose body, even after having been bulked up some, still looks vulnerable. No question though, I think, which player right now most fans and owners would rather have around, though I won't press the point, for fear of being wounded by another one of your attacks on my basketball purism. His attempts have gone up only when he's been asked to bring them up, and your own stats show that he's ranked #2 in efficiency. And how can the best player on the team "play too much"? Ask the other teams he's been torching for the last couple months whether they think they'd have done better if only Kobe had been playing a little more... I think even many, maybe most of Kobe's fans would agree with the second sentence, though there are certain players with whom Kobe matches up a lot better than either AI or Payton. Kobe can play small forwards and big guards better than AI, for sure, and sometimes better than the glove. Anyway, so far you've come up with two players who might arguably be better than Kobe defensively - come up with ten or twenty more, and you're still a long way from justifying calling him "one-dimensional" like you did before. Neener-neener to you, too. I didn't say I prefered highlight plays to substance, just that I considered it fair to consider the excitement a player generates as part of the package. And it's not just for the fans, or for those of us who enjoy seeing someone do things that probably no one or hardly anyone else on the planet can do: When Kobe posterizes a Yao or some other big guy, when he goes up against the entire opposing front-line and scores anyway, or hits a 3 under pressure with a top defender right in his face, it can de-moralize the other team, and pick up the Lakers - and take an opposing crowd out of the game or put the home crowd back in it You could see it happen to the Knicks a couple weeks ago - the game was competitive, Kobe made a couple great plays going into the half, and the Knicks didn't even return to the building until the 4th Quarter. And even the New York crowd was rooting for Kobe... That's all as much a part of the game as Duncan's footwork. If next time the Lakers meet the Spurs in the playoffs, and Duncan takes command of the game, or even plays reasonably well, instead of shrinking into his shell, then maybe I'll give him some more consideration.
Quote from KymarFye: great job by the Spurs, but kind of a weird record - given the peculiar situation that led to their extended roadtrip. It's kind of like holding the record for most wins by an NBA team from San Antonio... A record is a record, right? Why not give them their due? Their record is just as valid as Kobe's scoring streak in a watered down league with rule changes, right? I see you failed to address Kobe's turnover problem, shots per game, etc. Not surprising, there really is no defense for it. Compare Kobe's turnover ratio to Jerry West, or other great scorers historically. Flat out, Kobe doesn't rank with the best in that category. Defense? Unfortunately, to measure the defensive caliber of a player, the real statistic, the important statistic would be shooting percentage of those he covers during a game. Then we could have some legitimate comparisons. Kobe saves himself for offense, and cherry picks steals. Other defenders are not required to score, so they play full out on defense and hang back on offense. The inside players like Duncan play harder at both ends of the court than does Kobe. If we take three stats: Scoring per touch Rebounds Turnovers per touch You will see that the best players will have the best overall score in these three areas, a combined effort, not one dimensional. On that basis, Kobe is not the MVP. I would rank KG, then Duncan, then Kobe if I were 100% objective. MVP? What does it mean? Well, what did it mean when Karl Malone won? Or Sir Charles? All it did was piss off Jordan, and he punished those guys in the finals. Wasn't the little mermaid, David Robinson an MVP too? Kobe is a nice player, I'll grant you that, but not the best player in the league. Maybe in a few years, or when he proves he can win night in and night out with a mediocre supporting cast, the way MJ did. And let's not talk about the greatness of Scottie. Ho Grant? The triple headed monster of Bill Weddington and other also rans? Dennis the freak Rodman? Make me puke. Magic had Kareem and Worthy, Coop and other very good players. Bird had Chief and Mchale, and DJ. Bad boys had a great team. Houston won because MJ was retired. Take Shaq out of the picture, and we saw what happens, at the beginning of this year, didn't we? Kobe was the man, and he lead the team to a losing record. Kobe is hot right now, but he is not the man. Don't take my word for it, talk to those who play the game. Who do they really fear? Shaq or Kobe? Duncan or Kobe? Pierce of Kobe? AI when he is right, or Kobe? KG or Kobe? One other point: You defended the win by the Lakers last year, and poo pooed the consequences of the refs giving preferential treatment to the Lakers......yet you talked about the preferential treatment for MJ and the Bulls during their run. Trying to have it both ways, are you? Blinded by the purple and gold you appear to be.
MJ- a great player,but the most ungracious and arrogant great athlete of the last 20 years. But a revolutionary athlete. Revolutionary athletes of the last 30 years: Basketball: Michael Jordan - Everything player. Julius Erving- Original skywalker, author of the flying dunk. Erving could leap from the foul line and slam dunk. You never saw Jordan do that. Wilt Chamberlain - Original big man, plus he slept with 20,000 women. Sentimental runner-up: Darrell Dawkins, author of the backboard smashing dunk. Hockey: Wayne Gretzky-So revolutionary he has not set off a revolution, no one has been able to follow in his footsteps. Football: Jim Taylor - Most inventive runner ever. Lawrence Taylor - Changed defense, and therefore offense. One downfall: crack and booze. Joe Namath - Modern passing game built around him. 4007 yards in 1967 in a 12 game season. Al Davis, a pro scout in 1963 was sent to Georgia to scout Namath. Wrote in his report: "This boy is so good he tilts the field" Boxing: Mohammed Ali. Reinvented pugilism and became the first global athlete hero. One mistake was he made too many comebacks. Baseball: Roberto Clemente. Greatest all around athlete in baseball ever. Hit for exceptional average and power, great base runner, and could nail a runner at home on the fly from the warning track. Sandy Koufax. 98 MPH fastballer with wicked stuff. Next Clemente: Ichiro. Maybe candidate: Barry Bonds, a hero to all men my generation who can't accept that thier bodies don't do the things they used to 20 years ago. Tennis: Jimmy Conners. Created the contemporary power game with the introduction of non-wood racquets. Golf, Swimming, and all the others: who cares.
Basketball: Oscar Robertson, Magic. Oscar mastered the assist, Magic took it to a different level. Pistol Pete.....have you ever seen anyone since who had his skill with a basketball? Hockey: No question, the Great One Football: Jim Taylor? No, Jim Brown, Gayle Sayers, and Barry Sanders. Boxing: Ali, although Iron Mike had a chance for real greatness. His uppercut was unreal. Baseball: Roberto was greater than Willie Mays? I don't think so. Tennis: Rod Laver, McEnroe, Borg say it all. Everyone else is just a derivative.
Basketball: MJ period. Hockey: I'll take Lemiux over the Great One anyday. Football: Sweetness was better than Sanders and Sayers. Agree about Jim Brown. Boxing: Agree with Ali, agree with Tyson passing the opportunity for extraodinary greatness. Baseball: So many great ones. Who can say? Personal fav is The Pride of the Yankees. Tennis: Agree with Rod Laver, but Pete Sampras is head and shoulders the best tennis player to ever play the game. Track and Field: Carl Lewis. Chess: Capablanca, Fischer, Kasparov. Gymnastics: Nadia Comenice Bridge: Meckstroth and Rodwell Greatest race horse of all time: Secreteriat nitro
nitro, we were discussing revolutionary athletes of the past 30 years, ones who revolutionized the games they played. You know what I think of MJ, he is the greatest without question. I was just pointing out how some changed the way the game was played, which Oscar Robertson started and Magic followed up on. Who would ever have thought we would see a 6'8" point guard? I am not questioning your choices as great athletes of their sports, but who really changed the game? Sayers and Sanders were unique, they did things no one else had ever done, changed our idea of who is a great back. I don't think Sweetness changed the game that much---he just had more heart than most men can dream of, nor did Super Mario change the game that much, he is just one helluva scorer. Gretzky was not only the greatest scorer, but the greatest play maker, and changed the sport forever. Tiger in golf is changing the game forever. Sampras, who can argue with his record, but just another power player, nothing that changed tennis forever. What McEnroe did at the net was unparalleled, and Borg was the first true baseline power player. Laver was the best ever, Rocket Rod was the king, and probably would have had a couple more grand slams if he didn't have to miss out in the mid 60's because of amateur standing issues. Why didn't you comment on bowling? I pick Dick Webber. Auto racing? That's a tough one...Richard Petty perhaps? Greatest horse of all time? No contest, Mr. Ed.
I meant Jim Brown not Jim Taylor! Got mixed up with writing LT. Maravich was a great ball handler but he did not change the game. And if you go to the West 4th playground, you'll see guys who do everything he did. God rest his soul. The Say Hey Kid goes on the list. Tennis, Conners changed the game, period. Player and technology merged to created the power game played by Sampras, Agassi, and a 1000 others. Laver was one of the greatest all around players. And Rosewall was at least as good at net as was McEnroe. Mac was the last great classical serve and volley player. But he could not handle the power players who succeeded Conners, e.g. Lendl. Tyson, he could have been, but f*cked it all up.
Heck, there were many arguments I've made that you haven't responded to either. I guess I should harp, for instance, on the inability of a Duncan or a Garnett to make his own shot or to take over a critical game - at least one explanation for their relatively sorry playoff records. Duncan's strike season championship may have proved that, when surrounded by the right other players and not challenged by any teams of dynasty caliber, Duncan is good enough - and I don't deride Duncan's play: I just think he lacks charisma, and I think he's more the kind of player who can make a fair team into a good one. Kobe's the kind of player who can make a good team great - come to think of it he HAS made a good team great 3 years in a row. To say the least, none of these judgments are or can be totally objective, even when supposedly backed up by objective statistics, and there are exceptions to every rule. Assist-to-turnover is one interesting statistic, but, if you thought it was the be-all and end-all, then you would have had to conclude that Derek Fisher (or maybe Stockton, guess I'd have to check those all-important stats) was the best guard in the NBA during AI's MVP year. I agree Kobe could probably stand some improvement on turnovers, but his particular role in Jackson's system along with his style almost guarantees that he'll have a higher turnover-to-assists ratio than most guards, who are more typically either playmakers or scorers. Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know there are exceptions. Everyone's different. You'd have one set of comparisons, but not the be-all and end-all. Part of the problem is rather obvious, it seems to me: Even if you honestly believe that one or another statistical measure is definitive, it still can't make much sense when comparing an off-guard to a power-forward. They play differently. I don't think you often see anyone on the court playing "harder" than Kobe. The inside players obviously take more of a beating, but in terms of sheer continuous physical and mental effort being expended game after game, I think only AI compares with Kobe. Proves my point above: If you believed that, you would never be able to give an MVP to a true point guard. You'd have to consider AI a mediocre player. If you include assists under "scoring per touch," then maybe you'd have to consider Kidd to be without question the best guard, though he might get too many touches to blow away Duncan and KG for Optional777's greatest. I'm not sure. I think it's just one narrow way of judging a player's contributions. Go ahead and puke if you want - but Chicago had a deep team around MJ during its greatest years. It was even a playoff team when Michael decided to try baseball. Pippen was a complete player, maybe not deserving of his 50 greatest selection, but possibly the best all-around small forward in the league during his prime, and perfect for Jackson's system. Rodman led the league in rebounding, usually by a wide margin, and was probably the top low-post defender at the forward position. A number of the other guys were also highly skilled in their limited roles - Kerr's a good example. You need an outside threat to complete your "mediocre" supporting cast - okay, here's one of the best ever 3-point shooters to go with your best-ever rebounder and most complete small forward. Then you start rambling against yourself, describing how much support Magic and Bird had. Houston won a) because MJ retired, and b) Dream was unbelievably good and had a decent supporting cast. Would you really rather have Duncan than Hakeem in his prime? I don't think any single player wins night-in-night-out with a mediocre supporting cast. The Sixers were maybe an exception during AI's MVP season - depends on how you define "mediocre" - but if Philly had been in the West, they might have had trouble making the playoffs, and AI might have been dead before the All-Star break. At the beginning of the season, Kobe didn't have a "mediocre" supporting cast, he had a HORRIBLE supporting cast. No one but Kobe was producing, and several players were injured or suspended. Even so, they lost a few very close games. Kobe's recent performance, with the other guys at least contributing, is more indicative. Now that's obviously very subjective, and also just one question. But I confess, I don't hang out with NBA players like you must. So who confided in you that he's afraid of Duncan, KG, and Pierce, but not Kobe? When did he say it? How high was he? You're taking quotes from different contexts. I think the refs arguably let the Bad Boys go too far (though it was kind of cool in an ugly way, too), and anyway I'm glad they protected Michael and others. Later in his career, Michael surely got the benefit of whatever doubt on whatever call, and I don't really know whether that's "impure" or the way things have to be or even the way things should be. There's certainly an argument that he earned it. Anyway, I was responding to the idea of Kobe/Lakers vs Bad Boys match-up: Either 1) the refs would have to have protected Kobe, 2) Laimbeer and the others would have backed down to Shaq, or 3) Shaq would have had to tear Laimbeer's head off - and hardly anyone would have blamed him. As for the Lakers-Queens, if you went through the whole series, you could argue that the Lakers did not get preferential treatment overall. As for the final game and the final outcome, I maintain that the supposed disequality has been exaggerated by whining losers, a not infrequent occurence in hard-fought, close playoff match-ups, especially ones between reigning champs and upstart chokers. The Kings could have won that series, but to dethrone the champs they should have knocked 'em out, not hope for favorable scoring from the judges. That's just the way it is, whether it should be or not. Even the way it played out, the Kings had their chances, but they didn't have anyone who could get them over the hump during the last crunch. Superstars usually win playoff games. The refs sometimes are part of it, and until we have super-intelligent robots that can't be influenced by charisma, fatigue, and other human qualities, they'll remain as much a part of the pro game as injuries, money, luck, and a lot of other complicating factors. As an aside: One thing the Lakers lousy first half has done has probably ruined their image - the idea that, no matter what you did, they'd find a way to destroy you in the end. Everyone knows they're by far the thinnest of contenders. Everyone knows Shaq isn't what he was. There still may be enough time for the storyline to change again, but, add the unfinished business from last year, and I think they might be the ones who'd have to score a knockout in a re-match with the Kings. As a hardcore Laker fan for decades, I can't root against them, and I'd be happy to see Kobe move his game up from Unreal to So-Miraculous-Even-the-O7's bow down, but, for the sake of the longer term, I'd almost be glad to seem them taken out. I could imagine worse things than Buss feeling forced to add at least two new quality players who might come to the Lakers with the idea of sharing credit for restoring the dynasty.
Kobe has been Jordan-esque. No doubt about it. I had my doubts earlier but on this scoring tear he's been on he looks eerily like MJ. If his defensive intensity was as great as his offensive output, the MJ-Kobe comparison would be a wash.